BS: The Bailout

Subject: BS: The Bailout
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:03 PM

$700 BILLION
"The plan would allow the Treasury to buy up troubled assets from U.S.-based companies and foreign firms with big U.S. operations. The aim is for the government to buy the securities at a discount, hold onto them and then sell them for a profit."

I am so confused and I suspect our Senators and Congressmen are too.
Has anyone given us a list of the companies involved? Who decides? What are the criteria? Will baby bush's buddies once again walk away with my tax dollars? Wh do they think the US government will make on a profit on crap securities that no one else will buy? Why do some think that the CEOs and executives of these companies are entitled to huge bonuses?

I am not looking for political tirades. If someone has some answers I will be grateful and promise to read them carefully.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:09 PM

If we'd known the taxpayers were going to bail out the stock market, it would have been just fine to privatize Social Security.

                You have to wonder if they knew this is where things were headed then, which would explain why they made such a concentrated effort to make the privatization thing happen.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:16 PM

at the moment, Treas. Sec. Paulson is pushing for a quick approval to let HIM decide all the details, with a provision that the setup be immune fron question by any court or individual....(28 words, I believe)
   needless to say, some have reservations about this, suspecting that 'certain' people & companies will get preferential treatment...etc.

There is much debate going on as we type as to exactly how fast/soon something has to be decided and whether input from congress is necessary.
Obviously, "the devil IS in the details" in this one! If you go to MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/)and read transcripts and listen to replays of yesterdays programs (Olbermann, Maddow...etc..) you can see some of the issues involved...no doubt there will be much more today.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:20 PM

see here

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:37 PM

I just had the opportunity to phone in to a D.C. NPR program in which Rep Mario Diaz Bellart, a Republican from Florida who sits on the national Budget Committee, was fielding questions about national security versus economic security. I asked him what kind of hard data he had to understand the situation and, essentially, how he knew Congress wasn't just being stampeded by companies unwilling to inherit the harvest of their own bad management.

He tapdanced around like mad and essentially said there was no set of hard data, that they had to rely on the analysis by experts. He also did not answer the question, and he left me with the impression that he rerally did NOT know whether this was a curveball stampede act or a genuine national emergency.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:38 PM

Been there; done that. But no one is mentioning the names of the companies involved.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:49 PM

While the economy collapses around us, the Treasury Dept rolls out both a bail out pland and...wait for it


A NEW PENNY!

Just weeks after an artcle appeared about the cost ofr making a penny being higher than the value of the coin itself, the Treasury Dept rolls out not 1 but 4 new pennies. SIGH. How much did that cost us?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:09 PM

Yep, SINSULL...we need no more pennies...many folks refuse to carry them around anyway.I have been asserting for YEARS that we need to get rid of the $1 bill and make the $1 coin the only choice...make a $2 bill. It would save many millions.

The ONLY objection is tradition & nostalgia...and a small amount of superstition about $2 bills being unlucky.

Since almost no one uses half-dollar coins, NOTHING would have to change in cash registers...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:11 PM

A few comments from NYT Readers:

"I'm sorry, but I don't trust Paulson and I certainly don't trust Bush. What if it were Goldman Sachs that went under instead of Bear, Lehman or Merrill Lynch? Do we want to hand this much money to the same guys (Paulson) who are responsible for this crisis? And the last time we trusted Bush with this kind of responsibility, we wound up in a war everyone knew was coming but we were somehow unprepared for.

— Posted by Frunobulax
7.September 23rd,
2008
10:17 am My opinion of the Wall Street bailout is for the US government to seize of freeze all the assets of the big wig Wall Street people who made Billions of Dollars getting us in to this mess.

Leave them with their primary residence and two automobiles and their 401K money. Everything else goes to the Federal Reserve to help bailout the companies they reaped their huge profits from.

The US taxpayer should not be burdened with the bailout.

— Posted by Fred
8.September 23rd,
2008
10:17 am Double metaphor of the day: HE WHO TAKES THE RISK MUST PAY THE PIPER.

The mortgagor loses his house and the mortgagee gets bailed out. What is wrong with that picture.

Regards, Ben

— Posted by ben schwartz
9.September 23rd,
2008
10:17 am For all 'The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling' comments from Bernanke and Paulson, its now been 3 days since the meltdown and as far as I can tell the sky hasn't fallen. In any negotiation, and as we've seen throughout the Bush Administrations time in office, everything is an emergency and requires extreme actions without consideration, usually right before a recess for an election.

To our representatives, I implore you please for all of our sakes slow down and start again, not from this administrations framing of problem and solution. They got us into this situation,they are not qualified to get us out.

Even more disturbing are Sen. Obama's remarks that he may not be able to pursue his agenda once in office as a result of the bailout. This is the entire point of the bailout, to tie the hands of the next administration and to ensure that a progressive agenda which pro-actively seeks to improve the American project can never be implemented.

— Posted by Rob
10.September 23rd,
2008
10:21 am Absolutely outrageous. Here is what blows me away and gives the lie to the urgent necessity of this stunning taxpayer bailout of private companies and their scoundrel executives in the first place.
Paulson is objecting to the provision placing limits on executive compensation, the "golden parachite" rule. His reason for that objection is his concern that such limits would discourage companies from participating in the plan.
Well. I can only conclude they don't REALLY need our help. End of story. They want OUR charity, my money, to pay for their imcompetence and recklessness, and they want it on their terms, with the right to take sweet deals, or they will just walk away. Don't do us any favors, pal.
Let them die a slow death, then. The only solution is to buy the companies, void the compensation packages, and throw the bums out on their ears.
Paulson's plan is criminal and un-American.

— Posted by joe
11.September 23rd,
2008
10:26 am I would feel a lot better about this "bailout" if the bankers were crying at the begging table, not gleefully lining up! And having their lobbyists line up to sniff the rears of Congressman, 2 months before an election is probably criminal and certainly in bad taste! The token sacrifice of Lehman is not enough to satify a decade or more of greed and self-serving Ponzi scheme actibities, not enough atonement for the gloating Billion dollar bonuses! When I see shanty towns in near suburbs of NYC and for sale and foreclosure signs on the McMansions of Greed…then I might relent! Why do we need Wall Street and its bastions of sleaze? I'm not sure we would not be much better off if the whole mess was flushed! I remember when my money was in the local bank and we knew the banker! What do you think??

— Posted by Chaotician
12.September 23rd,
2008
10:29 am I have absolutely no, repeat NO, none, zilch faith that Bush and Friends is telling us the truth. I recall the last time Bushie used this "let's do this now without further debate" attitude — and we went to war with Iraq on distorted WMD evidence, deceitful statements and erroneous information. As a by-product, Secretary of State Colin Powell's career was irreparably damaged because he bought the Bushie li(e)ne.

And why shouldn't these bankers feel some financial pain? Thousands of citizens who pay their fair-share of taxes have seen their stock values plummet — so methinks it's only fair that these same execs who are clamoring for our/my money to bail them out should be de-compensated as well.

I feel any bank who participates in this program should have a max compensation of whatever the President makes for any executive. And no loopholes, either.

This rush to judgment doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I'm no longer buying my government's line that they know best (at least until Senator Obama and HIS team gets elected). The present administration has demonstrated repeatedly it's ignorant and can only provide cardboard statements and platitudes.

Where is the "truth" in lending these days?

Seth J Hersh
NYC
"

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:30 PM

This entire situation makes me sick because it reminds me of Iraq with the Bush administartion presenting yet another my-way-ot-the-highway policy proposal... Why does it have to be their way??? How much is Paulson worth??? $600M, that's how much...

If you want to fix this crap do it from bottom up... If you bad loans then restructure them with programs, that while assisting the homeowners with taxpayer "loans" to head off forclousers, also adds an element of trickle-up economics... Yeah, let the banks get it back in small doses... I'd rather see US spend $700B by helping people stay in their homes than giving the thugs who made the bad loans...

But then again, I'm a commie...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Goose Gander
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:33 PM

Bobert, really, this is America - we have socialism for the rich, not the blue-collar slobs or the desparate middle class.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:43 PM

Yeah, I know what we have and, like I said, "it makes me sick"...

Bunch of thieves... This is yet another money grab by the folks who have owned the Bush administration... The sad part about it is they screwed it up so bad that now they have scared everyond in the world that life, as we know it, will end and we will return to the days of 1929 if we don't go along with ****their*** plan...

Screw ****their plan****... I don't give a flying fig if Bush wants this passed and on his desk by Friday... It's time to take a deep breath and think outside the box...

Shoring up the debts of home owners will do alot more toward settling down the financial crisis, fueled by the housing crisis, then pumping more money into banks so they can make more bad loans...

If we pump the money into the homeowners it will "trickle up" to banks and in time those payments will give them the money they need to make more loans.... Actually, with a homeowners assistence program, just bringing up the arrearages will pump billions and billions into the banks and ****stop the forclouseures*** at the same time...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 01:54 PM

Trickleup sounds good but it is not the long-term soundness of the loan that is preventing the one useful thing that the Capitalist institutions are supposed to do.

Those institutions are supposed to recycle debt, by lending to each other, so that each borrower institution can in turn lend to others. When the money-go-round stops, no-on can borrow and all loans have to be called in.

That depends on lender confidence in institutional borrowers.

That depends on each institutional borrower being able to borrow today and tomorrow, rather than receiving payment on its consumer loans in due course.

A smaller bailout (the institutions need cash NOW or they will fold) plus federal guarantee of home loans of under $xxx (fed being subrogated to lender rights) might work, and might help prevent the creation of depression ghost towns.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 02:04 PM

It must be the end of the world. I heard Newt Gingrinch on NPR yesterday and I agreed with his misgivings about the whole affair. Did anyone else hear him? He thinks this whole thing is being rushed through and that we should be very cautious. He said the same folks who having been saying that there isn't a problem for the last year or two are now the ones who want to fix it right away with no oversight.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 02:20 PM

A few comments from readers at ABC:


"Gramm, Davis and Black
(and the 23 other banking lobbyists running Mccain's campaign)

had a thousand times more to do with this mess

than ANYONE of the dem side

so stop.



Posted by: dl (the real one) | Sep 23, 2008 1:57:38 PM


1st trillion

McCain keating S&L and deregulation lobby

2nd trillion

Mccain Bush Iraq War

3rd trillion

Mccain Gramm, Davis , Black,...and the rest of the deregulation lobby (ugh again!)

how many trillions does a candidate have to be involved in losing befor ewe say he should not have the keys to the economic engine of the world.?"

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 02:32 PM

Merkel Says Washington Helped Drag Europe into the Credit Crisis


Response to Washington's multibillion-dollar Wall Street bailout has involved a lot of skeptical grumbling in Germany and the UK. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the Bush administration has mishandled Wall Street, and that its refusal to adopt stricter rules led to the current crisis.

The United States government is campaigning around the world for support for its multibillion-dollar Wall Street rescue package. The reaction has been skeptical at best -- and in Europe the plan has been met with bareknuckled criticism.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has accused the US government of serious failures which she believes contributed to the current credit crisis. In particular she blamed Washington for resisting stricter regulation.

On Monday she also said the crisis could hurt the German economy. "The whole thing is going to set the pace for the economy in the coming months and perhaps years," Merkel said at a meeting of her party, the conservative Christian Democrats.

Over the weekend the US said it would provide $700 billion to cover bad debt on Wall Street and ensure the survival of some financial institutions. On Sunday US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson then called on foreign governments to launch similar bailouts for their own banks. "We are talking very aggressively with other countries around the world and encouraging them to do similar things and I believe a number of them will," Paulson told ABC News.

But the governments of Germany and Great Britain have shaken their heads.

While her finance minister said German banks would not need a similar bailout, Merkel said the world community should react by forging international agreements that could be voluntary rather than anchored in law. "The crisis on the international financial markets shows us that you can do some things on the national level, but the overwhelming majority must be agreed to on the international level." Instead of codifying these deals in law, Merkel suggested binding agreements between major economic players. "This is about greater transparency," she said.

A day earlier, during a visit to Austria, the German chancellor had even firmer words. "I'm criticizing the self-image of the financial markets -- which have unfortunately resisted voluntary rules for too long with the support of the governments of Great Britain and the United States."


(Der Spiegel)

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:00 PM

The milatary and the police have always stood behind the money people. As capitallism implodes, who do they support?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:20 PM

More regulation means less growth...You're fucked whichever way you turn!

Open your eyes, the system is rotten, the Parties are rotten, the candidates are rotten.
They all knew what was about to happen. One would have to be a complete idiot not to know.

Oh I hear you ...the dems will fix it,,,,,T'hell they will!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Wesley S
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:37 PM

I saw Naomi Klein on Bill Mahr's show the other night. Her book "The Scock Doctrine" sounds interesting. Here's a summery from her website:

Shock Doctrine


The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America's "free market" policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq's civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country's vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the "War on Terror" to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans's residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of "the shock doctrine": using the public's disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don't succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, "shock and awe" warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:40 PM

Interesting (if slightly scary) view from the New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/business/23sorkin.html?em


KP (from Scotland, where we seem to be losing banks as well...)

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:47 PM

Paulson is willing to have Congressional oversight over the mmoney and even be transparent regarding the REVERSE auction of the trash derivitives.


BUT he wants NO judical reveiew or court authority over anything they do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 04:25 PM

Dennis Kucinich put out this statement today on the bailout:

Dear Friend,

The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. The Wall Street bailout, the Iraq War, military spending, tax cuts to the rich, and a for-profit health care system are all about the acceleration of wealth upwards. And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that's half a quadrillion dollars. Our first trillion dollar compression bandage will hardly stem the hemorrhaging of an unsustainable Ponzi scheme built on debt "de-leverages."

Does anyone seriously think that our public and private debts of some $45 trillion will be paid? That the administration's growth of the federal debt from $5.6 trillion to $9.8 trillion while borrowing another trillion dollars from Social Security has nothing to do with this? Does anyone not see that when we spend nearly $16,000 for every family of four in our society for the military each year that we are heading over the cliff?

This is a debt crisis, not a credit crisis. Just as FDR had to save capitalism after Wall Street excesses, we have to re-invigorate our economy with real - not imaginary - growth. It does not address the never-ending war on the middle class.

The same corporate interests that profited from the closing of U.S. factories, the movement of millions of jobs out of America, the off-shoring of profits, the out-sourcing of workers, the crushing of pension funds, the knocking down of wages, the cancellation of health care benefits, the sub-prime lending are now rushing to Washington to get money to protect themselves.

The double standard is stunning: their profits are their profits, but their losses are our losses.

This bailout will not bring real jobs back to America. It will not bring back jobs that make things. It does not rebuild our schools, streets, neighborhoods, parks or bridges. The major product of this financial economy is now debt. Industrial capitalism has been destroyed.
In the next few days I will push for a plan that includes equity for every American in any taxpayer investment in this so-called bail-out plan. Since the bailout will cost each and every American about $2,300, I have proposed the creation of a United States Mutual Trust Fund, which will take control of $700 billion in stock assets, convert those assets to shares, and distribute $2,300 worth of shares to new individual savings accounts in the name of each and every American.
I will also insist that all of the following issues be considered in whatever Congress passes:

Reinstatement of the provisions of Glass-Steagall, which forbade speculation
Re-regulation of the finance, insurance, and real estate industries
Accountability on the part of those who took the companies down:
a) resignations of management
b) givebacks of executive compensation packages
c) limitations on executive compensation
d) admission by CEO's of what went wrong and how, prior to any government bailout

Demands for transparencey
a) with respect to analyzing the transactions which took the companies down
b) with respect to Treasury's dealings with the companies pre and post-bailout
An equity position for the taxpayers
   a) some form of ownership of assets
Some credible formula for evaluating the price of the assets that the government is buying.
A sunset clause on the legislation
Full public disclosure by members of Congress of assets held, with possible conflicts put in blind trust.
A ban on political campaign contributions from officers of corporations receiving bailouts
A requirement that 2008 cycle candidates return political contributions to officers and representatives of corporations receiving bailouts
And, most importantly, some mechanism for direct assistance to homeowners saddled with unreasonable or unmanageable mortgages, as well as protection for renters who have lived up to their obligation but fall victim to financial tragedy when the property they live in undergoes foreclosure.

These are just some thoughts on the run. You will hear more from me tomorrow.


Dennis J Kucinich
www.Kucinich.us
216-252-9000   877-933-6647

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 04:29 PM

ake says:"More regulation means less growth"

and so? Growth is a luxury under certain conditions, and cannot be infinite. The problem is that many businesses are structured on adding to their base each year and always 'growing'

.....it's the American free enterprise system...it's the incentive for innovation, for goodness sake! Except that, everyone wants THEIR share to grow, no matter what the market in general does. NO ONE wanted to be first to stop making shaky loans, as long as cash-flow was still happening. Now look.

   Sorry, but when the big institutions cannot be trusted to be careful when dealing with financial manipulations that can affect everyone, there MUST be oversight **AND** regulation! I flatly DO NOT CARE if the conservatives think it violates their mantra of "less government"! Seriously huge amounts of money are just too much temptation to allow clear thinking when walking near the edge of financial danger.

   If you cannot be careful, you WILL be regulated!

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 04:59 PM

I typical Bush terms, think of it as a War on Bankruptcy. That way, martial law and draconian measures are the norm.

Personally, If I'm asked to lend money to somebody or something, I want to know what I'm getting back for it. And when.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:12 PM

What Dennis said!!!

That's what I'm talkin' about, too... Trickle up, folks... We have 26 year history of trickle down and it has beena complete failure except to those folks in the upper 5%... If that was a test score then it got 5 outta 100 questions right!!!

Ya'll need to think about that before signing on with this...

And, Ake... Growth ain't worth jack if the only 5 outta 100 people are positively effected by it...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:38 PM

Dennis is fundamentally correct. THIS is a debt crises.

So many words have been changed in this scheme's presentation to the public.

If it were a credit crises then we would be seeing millions of Americans getting letters telling them that they may no longer use their credit card. We don't see this.

The trust of the world is damaged and looming in total collapse.

Barbaric as it seems sometimes blood shows good faith. In other words if we had a French solution we would take the thousands of Ponzi scheme criminals and put them to the public Guillotine.
China does it to their business criminals and in Japan, failed CEOs have in fact committed hari cari.

The world would see we are serious with convicting humdreds if not thousands of people. Afterall they have defeated this nation more than terrorism. Then repairing the mass theft could be done in the fullness of time.

One last thing about punishment... give George and Cheney Amnesty,
all the people not so lucky would still have them to look at with hate in their heart.

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

The Paulson scheme that demands no regulation from agencies or courts is not the answer.

The answer is blood AND money...that is if I were to dispense justice and attemmpt remedy.

Honestly is it in reality too harsh???

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 07:23 PM

Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.

I wonder...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 08:10 PM

"Those institutions are supposed to recycle debt, by lending to each other, so that each borrower institution can in turn lend to others. When the money-go-round stops, no-on can borrow and all loans have to be called in."

This is, of course, exactly the reason that we are in the mess! It's also called 'leveraging' - loaning more money to others than you can cover yourself - it can only work while the merry go round keeps speeding up!

Stop the World! I want to get off!



"in Japan, failed CEOs have in fact committed hari cari."

In 1929, those in the USA who had a conscience, also jumped out the window.

To quote a certain famous British Comedy Duo - "Jump, You F*****, Jump!" (Now we'll see who knows their comedy!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 11:00 PM

I wonder if any of the Wall Street Traitors respondsible for the gigantic ponzi scheme that left America in worse shape than from the attack of 9-11 could be found to be enemy combatents or terrorists under the Patriot Act???

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 11:10 PM

More regulation does not mean either more or less growth. Sane regulation means sane growth and excessive regulation (too much) means stifled growth. Excessive regulation in the other direction, too little, means lizard brains come out and the growth steers us into catastrophic excesses of greed.

There is a middle ground for everything. No-one wants to be stifled, but not many benefit from cancer, either.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:00 AM

The Wall Street CEO's are ready to jump out the windows & off the roofs, again, but this time they're looking to land softly & on their feet with a golden parachute on their backs & a shit eating smile as they walk off laughing all the way back to "THEIR BANKS".

They're also looking to be involoved in the restructuring of this failed economy (that they fucked up) thus double dipping into the 700 billion that they're all lining up for. And we're supposed to just trust them to not fuck it up again? Where's that Turnip Truck we all just fell off of?

The "trickle-up" won't happen unless the failing housing market gets the shot in the arm instead of Wall St.
I'd love to see a nation wide mass resistence directed towards those that fucked us up in the 1st place. If homeowners across the nation stopped paying their mortgages & demanded the government bail them out instead of Wall St by remortgaging at better terms & lower rates & let the CEO's land face first in the gutter the country would be in a better place alot faster. It was the Banks & Lenders (along with their political counterparts) that put straw on the camel's back. But it started long ago & continued with the Energy Industry writting their own tickets & laws, with the Insurance, Health & Drug Industries deceiding who plays God & Lording over the public, with their partners in Government. Along with the creation of a well placed & well needed war with huge no bid contract & the outsourcing of the military that's cost the tax payer billions per month & there's no oversite of those that are reaping the benies. Another Government overnight knee jerk response that had to be pushed through, again with no recourse, responsibility, repayment or justice if it's another failure.

None of this would've been possible without those partnerships!

Obama's plan to invest in a Green Industry, bring jobs back into this country, give the working classes a tax break seeing as we've been carring the rich on our backs for so long while they receive all the good breaks, put people back to work on our infrastructures, etc, this is what will get the nation going again. When a small business fails the government steps in alright, to pull every drop of blood it can out while it's on it's way down & then it puts the employer & their employees out on the street while they make sure for the next 10 yrs they get paid with interest & the employee's (see Enron) are the least & last to be cared for. So this time let them (the Ex's) fall from the roofs & out the windows & pound the pavement like John Q Public does each time a recession hits.

Did the Bush administration see the foreclosures ahead of time when they rearranged the Bankruptcies Laws? Did they see this coming when they kept hollaring for deregulation seeing/knowing they had a saftey net that included a golden parachute when the time came to cash in. Did they see this coming when they passed the Patriot Act?
Their timing was certinally perfect.

So their worst nightmare may come home to bite them on the ass if the Gov doesn't bail them out, then again if they get the bail out they hedged the best bet in US history while we get the pay off.

They get this bail out they will own not only all the mortgages but they'll also own all the houses as well as the land they sit on while we pay rent to survive in what once was our own. Then the bitter end will be when they've drained us of all that they can we'll get evicted. Wait the worst in not here yet. Then we'll have to labor/slave away for them during the rest of our days & shop at their company store by night.
A funny thing happened on the way to the Bank!

Where's the WMD's when you really need one????

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:30 AM

You mean there is no blanket, F?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:34 AM

There is but it's full of holes. It was eaten away with rot!

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: akenaton
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:54 AM

Bobert...I agree with you 100%, as I do in most of what you write, but without growth, Capitalism cannot survive.
What caused the huge use of credit both in the US and USA?.
Was it simply a few greedy fat cats?   Do you think that government, and the faceless criminals who pull the strings of government were unaware of what was going on?
I don't think so. Capitalism must keep selling to survive, and it doesn't particularly care whether its cash or credit, or whether the credit can be repayed, just so long as the wheels keep turning.
At the end of the day, the string pullers know that Capitalism must be bailed out, so that the public can continue to live in "Fairyland"......Amazingly even here on Mudcat, the majorty still think it can all be fixed, by a little regulation.....an inspiring leader....just a tweek on the advance/retard mechanism. Christ I've been hearing that shit for 50 fuckin' years.

This latest disaster is what happens when Capitalism reaches the end of the cycle.   In the West, Capitalism has become UNSUSTAINABLE, the string pullers know it and people need to learn it damned quick.

We need to take action now to protect ourselves and our children and I don't mean our sickening wasteful lifestyle ....I mean our very existence.....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 05:22 AM

I see some of you remember Derek & Clive (aka Peter Cook & Dudley Moore) -

Now it's a Music Thread!

DEREK:
    (plays piano and sings:)

    #As I was walking down the street one day
    I saw a house on fire
    There was man, standing at an upper-storey window
    Shouting and screaming at the crowd that was gathered there below
    For he was sore afraid

    #Jump! You f*****, jump!
    Jump into this here blanket what we are holding
    And you will be all right
    He jumped, hit the deck, broke his f***ing neck -
    There was no blanket

    #Laugh?! We nearly shat!
    We had not laughed so much since Grandma died
    Or Auntie Mabel caught her left tit in the mangle
    We are miserable sinners
    Fi-i-ilthy f***ers

    #Ahhhrrrr-soles


Gee I remember when that was banned.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 12:47 PM

I listened to Warren Buffet, a man I usually admire, give his rationale for buying $5 billion of Goldman Sachs. He said that in his investments he looks for brains, and that there is no better firm than GS.

He also said that he is betting that the "government will do the rational thing and act promptly" in its bailout. He said that if he didn't believe that, he wouldn't be buying "this week", instead he might be looking to divest himself of some things.

What say you?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:04 PM

I'm not knowlegeable enough about this mess to know a good idea when I hear it, but I'm smart enough to know when I hear a dumb one. One that particularly leaves me going "Huh?" is the idea of salary caps for executives of "bailed out" corporations. I agree that some of them have obscene compensation deals, but the idea most often floated is that they should have their compensations capped at $400,000, an amount equal to the salary off "the highest paid federal official", meaning the President of the US.

Now, $400K is around ten times what most of us make, but it's peanuts to the top execs of most Fortune 500 companies. Do our congressfolks think anyone's going to take that sort of cut in pay without going job hunting? Is Congress so out of touch that it thinks it can somehow force people to stay on the job for what, to them, is peanuts? Last time I checked, the only people in the US who are legally prohibitted from saying, "Take this job and shove it!" are members of the US military services. Offer most CEOs $400K and they'll laugh in your face. Yes, they may have driven their companies into the ground, but any of them can pack their bags and find jobs elsewhere making way more than $400K. The public may labor under the impression that the failures of the businesses they ran have made them "radioactive" and that nobody else would hire them, but the fact is that the boards of most companies evaluate potential top execs in the same way owners of NFL football teams view potential head coaches; it doesn't really matter if they've has some failures as long as they've also had some successes and it looks like they'll "fit".

If it's really in our best interest that these companies be resurected, then what's needed are the best people for the job; the ones with the most smarts and talent. Those people don't come cheaply. If someone wants to fire the presidents of the failed firms and hire new people to take their places, fine. Just don't expect to get the best qualified people to replace them for way less than what the competition is willing to pay.

Anyway, when someone says that the President of the US is paid $400,000 per year, I think he's leaving out a few things like a free mansion to live in, free meals cooked by gourmet chefs, virtually unlimited household and clothing allowances, a fleet of limos, a fully crewed private Boeing 747 and all the jet fuel it can burn, a helicopter to fly where the 747 can't go, personal security provided by some of the best-trained bodyguards in the world, and health care provided by the best doctors in the US? You don't really think Bush paid for that bag of pretzels out of his own pocket, do ya?

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:09 PM

Hey...400 K? I'll take it.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Amos
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:16 PM

Don't worry, be happy

By Philip J. Rappa
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Sep 24, 2008, 00:19


There is no need to be a forensic pathologist to understand the cause of death of America's financial institutions and our credibility abroad. The only thing required is a familiarity with our history.

Over the past 29 years, beginning with the 96th Congress and concluding with the 106th, there has been a systematic concerted effort by our elected officials to unravel the remaining vestiges of our institutions that represented our sovereignty as a nation. If we just round up these usual suspects, based on reasonable suspicion, we can begin to delineate more than just probable cause, but most importantly the direct cause of our misfortune.

Following the stock market crash of 1929, laws were enacted to prevent another debacle: The Glass-Steagall Act and the creation of the FDIC. Both officially named the Banking Act of 1935. These laws set in motion the apparatus separating commercial banks from investment banks; this arrangement worked for 64 years.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) included banking reforms some of which were designed to control speculation. Some provisions such as Regulation Q allowed The Federal Reserve to regulate interest rates in savings accounts. In 1980, congress in all its wisdom repealed the FDIC reforms by enacting the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act.

Then on November 12, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. One of the effects of the repeal was to allow commercial and investment banks to consolidate. From that moment it only took Wall Street and K-Street nine years to destroy our financial institutions and our credibility abroad.

The only noteworthy fact that is prologue to this disaster is that each generation preceding us has had their own financial calamity ushered in by unencumbered and unbridled capitalism. Each time profit trumped public interest. The agents of our despair have treated their oath of office as if it were an antiquated notion giving their allegiance as well as aid and comfort to the free market, while the working man became little more than an expendable asset.

Each generation had its own brand of corporate and government corruption and cronyism, and an understanding of the collusion between the government, industry, military and the bankers. Even to a casual observer, a pattern seems to emerge. Humanity has struggled for centuries to unshackle themselves from the subjugation of kings, popes, empires and raw capitalism.

In one generation, we have idly watched as these same elected officials dismantled our nation's industries sending them, our jobs and our technology to foreign shores to be made on the cheap. America's labor force has been disemboweled, placed on a pyre fueled by vapors of a gossamer web that once epitomized America's "Promise": that of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The "Promise," once the tapestry of this nation's domestic social contract, which was won by the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before us, has been shredded by an unregulated corporate free-market fanaticism. We on Main Street shall be left to pay the piper due to the treasonous actions of our elected officials and our own individual participation in this Ponzi scheme.

...

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Goose Gander
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:52 PM

The 'smartest people for the job' are the ones who got us into this mess. If compensation reflected performance, these people would be selling apples on street corners.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 02:54 PM

Yo, Ake,

I guess in an acadmeic sense you are correct that cpaitalism cannot survive without growth because people would not invest if there would be not return on the investment and return in theory is growth... However in the real world, we don't have capitalism anyway... We have a bastardized hybrid of capitalism and socialism with a unhealthy dose of corruption sprinkled on top...

Either way, I would agree that growth is important but growth is no something that is confined exclusively to capitalism... One can have growth with communism and socialism...

As for the bailout, it looks as if Congress has survived the "my-way-or-the-highway" phase of the proposal and it also looks as if most of the ideas that Barrak Obama has been talkin' about are finding their way into the mix...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 03:45 PM

Amos, good piece there at your post of 24 Sep 08 - 02:16 p.m.

Thank you!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 04:02 PM

The Bail out blues

(spoken)
Alcoholic Wall St.
went on a bender.
Whew did they get drunk.

When they woke up
they went to their blender
and their poor heart sunk

(sung)
They lost all they had
other people's homes
and a billion loans.

The Bush Brokers had an idea
We know how to bail you out
A$700,000,000,000. drink is what its all about

The neighbors all chipped in
and the Bush brokers bought the booze
they opened Wall Street's mouth

like money down the kitchen sink
Ask them why they need your money
they will smile but they won;t blink



Chorus
Hands in the air you taxpaying jerk
I need all your dough
Hurry up you ass holes and no one here gets hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 05:16 PM

If we're buying the store, we should fire the old shopkeepers. Parachutes? HA!

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 05:26 PM

Well, now. There are two kinds of "bailouts."

One is when you strap on a parachute and jump out of a damaged airplane in order to save your life. When you've landed safely, the ordeal is over.

The other is when your boat is sinking and you have to grab a bucket and scoop water out. You hope you can scoop it out faster than it pours in, but a large part of the problem is that, until the leak is fixed, you have to keep scooping.

Hmm. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 06:16 PM

John McCain has more experience bailing out than Obama

...from 20,000 feet

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 06:16 PM

The first mono DEBATE

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:02 PM

Hi Kids: Want to have an interesting week on Wall Street? Don't bail 'em out. Take the 700 Billion and disburse it to the Taxpayers...Money doesn't talk...It SCREAMS...

This creative "correction" would have the Stock Market Spendos doing some fancy dancing right quick...

Let the people vote with $$$...bob

p.s. Does anybody else besides me find it "unusual" that somehow the Government has bucks for Wall Street, but comes up short on Healthcare, Roads, Schools, Arts, etc.???? BR

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:26 PM

We would get about 12,000 bucks apiece unless a bank has a lein on your tax returns.

Subject: RE: BS: The Bailout
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Sep 08 - 07:35 PM

economic theories from the.......past?